


Baby, It's Cold Outside

by DovahDoes



Series: Shall We Not Revenge [1]
Category: Doctor Sleep (2019), Doctor Sleep - Stephen King
Genre: (good for him), (in the past and not between any of the OT3), (not that anyone'll own up to it), (still no spoilers for the book here), (there's also some feelings w/ the smut tho??), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst, Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Comfort, Dan Does NOT Like Snow, Dan finally gets some sleep, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Improper Use Of The Shine, It's mostly what this fic is, M/M, Multi, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Possessive Behavior, Protectiveness, Rose Is A Tease, Smut, Threesome - F/M/M, a lil bit of - Freeform, as well as some orgasms, for obv reasons, tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:00:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23075146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DovahDoes/pseuds/DovahDoes
Summary: Crow and Rose pay their live-in meal ticket an unexpected visit on a snowy winter night in a remote cabin up in the mountains.They may not be 'hungry', but that doesn't mean they'll refuse a three-course meal so conveniently being offered up.That is, the OT3 does the do and everybody has a Good Time. ;o*[[Prequel toThree's (Good) Company.]]
Relationships: Crow Daddy/Dan "Danny" Torrance, Crow Daddy/Rose the Hat, Crow Daddy/Rose the Hat/Dan "Danny" Torrance, Rose the Hat/Dan "Danny" Torrance
Series: Shall We Not Revenge [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560202
Comments: 12
Kudos: 49





	Baby, It's Cold Outside

**Author's Note:**

> 🎶 Oops I did it again... 🎶 (As in, I keep writing for this OT3....)
> 
> I _tried_ writing a sequel to [Three's (Good) Company](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21613507), but my muse is a troll and instead gave me a v v smutty prequel instead???
> 
> So....
> 
> (Don't squint too close at timelines, plz. I'm shoddily picking and choosing from the book and movie verse(s) for, here, _and_ I'm wildly overdue for a rereading of the book, anyway.)
> 
> So uh, yeah. This is technically an established 'relationship', at this point in the AU, but it's not exactly a proper one, which they're a lot closer to in TGC (not that anyone's _admitting_ to it in that fic, either)....

It had been a surprise (albeit a pleasant one) to see his off-and-on lovers (cum ‘at home AA’ sponsors, of sorts) on his doorstep, earlier. _Especially_ bearing gifts of fresh groceries and a few recent DVD releases, as they were. He’s had a pretty busy week at work at the hospital, with a coworker calling out sick several days straight and leaving him to work doubles more often than not, and he hasn’t really had the wherewithal to maintain his semi-regular emails with Rose and Crow like he has for the last few months.

Ever since they had buckled down this past spring and helped him to not only stop drinking, but to keep from picking it back up, they’ve both been pretty good about keeping in fairly consistent communication— even outside of scheduling their regular ‘visits’ (read: booty-calls with the intent to feed off of Dan’s shine). Being more tired than he’s been in a long time, though, has meant there’ve been a few unopened or unanswered messages on his end, something he’d been resolving to address tomorrow, during his days off over the weekend.

Instead, inexplicably, Rose and Crow had just… showed up on the remote cabin’s snow-covered doorstep _today_ , just past sunset, holding several canvas bags filled with purchases from the nearest supermarket down in town. After a quick exchange of ‘hi’s and ‘good evening’s, all of them had retreated into the house’s warm interior to unpack the groceries.

Feeling unaccountably almost shy for a minute due to the unannounced social call, Dan had had to shake himself and quickly put his head back on straight in order to socialize with— with his two…. with Rose and Crow.

After they’d all finished packing away the goods in their designated places, chatting about Dan’s seemingly interminable week at work and a bit about some of the sights Crow and Rose had seen over the last month all the while, they’d eventually migrated to the comfy sectional in the living room, bottles of Coca Cola (Dan’s favourite and Crow’s _second_ favourite) in hand.

And then they had… stayed and watched a movie, some dystopian sci-fi thing from the 90's that Dan only vaguely remembered seeing (mostly because of how attractive both the male _and_ the female lead were). During its runtime, Crow and Rose sniped about how clearly dangerous it was for rubes to manipulate DNA, and about what a waste it was that some of their own exorbitant sums of money actually went into funding programs like the one shown in the movie.

By the second movie, Dan had fully relaxed into the odd, impromptu movie night (which, really, felt much more like a _date_ night than any other occasion he’d seen the other two), but during _that_ film, he ended up completely missing the plot and premise.

Mostly because, ironically, he was increasingly distracted by exactly how _comfortable_ he was feeling— or perhaps, more tellingly, how _safe_ and _relaxed_ he was.

Glancing at the digital clock on the front of the DVD player, now, shows that it’s still the early evening yet (and that they’re probably at about the halfway point of the movie if it’s a standard length), but Dan is very preoccupied with steadily spiraling down into his thoughts. Nearby, the sources of said comfort and/or safety hopefully remain oblivious of his ongoing self-reflective epiphany.

It has been a long, _long_ time since Daniel Torrance has felt secure contentment that hasn’t been poorly fabricated and temporarily induced by a buffer of alcohol to numb his discomfort with himself and the world around him. It’s been even longer since he’s felt _safe_ : that feeling, too, had been a diminishing commodity even before his father accidentally-on-purpose snapped his arm in a drunken rage when he’d been all of four years old.

His family’s doomed stay at The Overlook and its still lingering apparitions had only cemented the unattainable status of that elusive, forgotten feeling.

Until now, apparently, in spite of being wedged between two supernatural creatures that have indulged in not only murder but _torture_ to survive and obtain sustenance. Worse still, _before_ they sponsored his sobriety— in pursuit of better quality meals, according to them— they had tacitly sponsored whichever high-proof, liquid coping mechanism he chose to employ in dealing with his less than stellar past and much-resented shine.

But still… they’ve consistently been providing quality housing, food, and even clothing for him for over a year (even if the housing changes city and state occasionally), had _eventually_ helped him kick his worst habits, substance-wise, and have never been unduly rough or abusive when sharing intimate space with him. (Having had _far_ more ‘imbalanced’ sexual encounters or transactions in his years on and off the streets, he sometimes appreciates that final point most of all.)

_God_ , Dan is fully aware that Rose and Crow are _not_ good people— are maybe not even ‘people’ at _all_ in the strictest sense— but they _are_ good to _him_. And with how needy he is from a lifetime of feeling far too much and having to deaden that shine-boosted _yearning_ for a kind word or hand (something only his mother and Dick Halloran had provided), it’s no wonder he can feel himself starting to fall in love with the both of these Hollow Souls a little bit.

Dwelling on these ‘warm and fuzzy’ thoughts along with the fact that they’re both very, _very_ attractive to Dan, is making for a somewhat embarrassing developing situation, though. He’s sat on the couch between the couple, who, as they are wont to do in any space they occupy, have spread out like content cats; Crow’s feet are on the coffee table, next to his empty bottle of cola, but his thigh is flush with the knee of Dan’s right leg which he’d crossed earlier while trying to hide the slight tent growing at the front of his lounge pants.

Rose is seated cross-legged, the way she sometimes will be when meditating in a chosen quiet spot, but her long legs smoothly unfold when she gets up to whisk away Dan and Crow’s empty soda bottles and take them to the kitchen behind them. She hates mess, he knows, be it in the houses they settle Dan into every few months, in her camper, or, once upon a time, in her decaying chapter of the True Knot. 

The only time she seems to _enjoy_ mess is in bed, wherein she often demands that Dan lick up any— _well_.

Huffing out through his nose, Dan fights not to squirm as he rapidly cuts off the utterly depraved direction his mind had been going in. Very carefully, he does _not_ think about the way that Rose’s hand had curled around the tapered, condensation-slick necks of both his and Crow’s drinks, just now.

He also does _not_ have a visceral sense-flashback of how he could feel the heat emanating from Crow’s hand when it had curled around his hip, earlier, in the kitchen while maneuvering Dan out of the way of a cabinet he was blocking.

In a moment of lapsed control that has been happening more frequently since he stopped drinking, Dan’s shine pulses out and ‘tastes’ at the people in his vicinity (and _hopefully_ doesn’t send out his own feelings, simultaneously).

Without filtering whose mind is whose, he picks up CONTENT and WARM and MINE and even a low-grade, but consistent pulse of WANT that is not banked in the sense of vague urgency that he, himself is trying not to emanate as his arousal slowly ramps up.

Pulling his accidentally loosed mental reins back in close, again, Dan resolves to head to the john for a minute and maybe furiously, (embarrassingly) masturbate away his inappropriately timed lust before he ruins a movie night that is doing a decent job of distracting him from the anxiety-inducing, heavy snowfall outside.

Before he can utter a quick excuse, though, Rose returns to the family room, brushing fingers through Dan’s already slightly mussed hair with _just_ the right hint of scratch at his scalp to have him leaning into the brief touch that disappears when she has to round the end of the sectional. The fleeting caress instantly translates itself as a zing of pleasure that shoots down his nerves and adds to the pool of heat blooming low in his stomach.

When the Irish expat sits back down, it is with her eponymous hat perched atop her tumble of dark, wavy locks, and a cheshire grin on her full lips.

“Felt that,” she says cavalierly. “Had _no_ idea James Bond films got you _so_ turn—"

This time, Dan purposefully relaxes the hold on his shine a bit and the WANT/WARM/MINE has a sort of reverb, as though it’s coming from not just Crow and Rose, but probably _himself_ as well.

Simultaneously, he leans in to aggressively kiss Rose, almost managing to knock her hat askew before he adjusts the angle of his head. (He lets it be, since he knows better than to try and grab or fix it, by now, thanks to several past stern warnings about doing so that inform his decision.)

Taking off the bohemian magicians hat herself and placing it somewhere behind her, Rose then clambers onto Dan’s lap, gripping the nape of his neck to direct the embrace, giving back eagerly. With a nip at his lips, she draws a bit of blood, prompting both participants to groan into the kiss. A second or two later, she breaks away and inhales deeply— _savagely—_ the sound a familiar one to them all. Dan opens his eyes in time to catch hers fading from supernatural white-blue to their regular hue of light, mossy hazel.

“Mmm… I was about to do that, but this? This is nice, too,” Crow rumbles behind him, audibly taking in the last remnants of the first bit of steam to rise from Dan.

Humming a pleased moan at the delicacy that is a taste of Dan’s shine, Rose draws their youngest into another, even filthier kiss, slowly rocking her warm, dampening apex against his rapidly filling erection with purpose. Adding to his burgeoning arousal, another set of hands comes to rest gently on his sides before one fluidly insinuates itself over the front of his pants and starts untying the string at their front.

While pulling apart the knot on Dan’s sweatpants, Crow crowds in closer at his back, running his other hand under Dan’s hoody at the front and then gently scratching down the sensitive skin of his chest and upper belly. A desperate sound filters out of Dan’s throat as he rolls his hips up, grinding his dick partially into Crow’s hot hand and partially against Rose’s crotch.

One of Dan’s hands grasps Crow’s forearm that wraps around his front, and the younger man’s other hand shifts from gripping Rose’s hip to start hurriedly untucking her flowy blouse from her clinging leggings.

When he draws back to again get air for a quick moment, soft, strong hands almost immediately tilt his head back and bare his throat for Rose’s perusal. As always, he goes easily enough, and the familiar sensation of plush lips and a hot tongue working at the skin near his adam’s apple has his eyes fluttering shut again and a hiss issuing from between his own lips.

A sharp pinch rounded out by two burning pinpricks of overlong canines radiates waves of pleasure-pain from the place where his shoulder meets his neck and Dan cries out at the sensation. His hand spasms on the soft fabric of Rose’s waistband and tugs her damp heat forward against the back of Crow’s hand, which keeps deliberately fondling Dan’s underwear-covered erection while his hips roll up helplessly into both of his partners’ touches.

Instead of gradually abating, though, the pleasure instead swells and spikes, suddenly, in time with the breathy groans and sighs of Crow and Rose around him as they take more of his steam. Under the other two’s ministrations, his own tight control over his shine continues to slacken bit by bit as his mind goes sex-foggy, but the results are anything but unpleasant, with the intermittent feedback loop only heightening the experience.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he groans out, blinking his eyes when he finally zones back in to see his lovers pulling apart from a kiss over his shoulder that he’s managed to completely miss. (It’s a shame, too: he loves to watch these two sources of animal magnetism seek sexual delight together almost as much as he likes being caught in their orbit and invited into their bed, himself.)

Crow’s rigid manhood now grinds forward intermittently as the older man places amorous, mustache and beard-bristly kisses along the back of his neck and the parts of his upper back where his favourite careworn hoody lays a bit skewed.

“Mm,” Rose moans breathily, licking lips that are kiss swollen and ruby red as she kneels up, latching onto Dan’s wandering hand that has only _just_ finally brushed down past the thatch of her trimmed pubic hair. “ _No_. We’ll be doing this in the bed or not at all, Daniel.”

Lightly dragging her fingers over the livid marks she’s left on her newest lover’s throat, first, she then smoothly swings a leg over the couch’s edge. Dan knows well enough, now, not to call her bluff, but his frustration and need are evident when he instead presses back further into Crow’s attentions for the moment, subconsciously seeking some soothing attentions.

Stripping her fluttery, boho chic shirt overhead instead of wasting time with its half-dozen buttons, Rose watches as two sets of eyes— one pair intermittently flickering almost white, and the other a clear, ocean blue— trace her movements as she then effortlessly whips off her lace-trimmed brassiere.

Her tight, black leggings go next, and she balls up all of her clothing so it can be held in one of her hands, knowing that as she bends over to scoop up the garments, her already sheer underwear only gets sheerer when it stretches a bit. Crow is definitely an ass man, but even Daniel, who has a range of types, keenly enjoys an exquisitely sculpted feature when he sees one.

“…boys? _Coming_?” She taunts with a smirk, heading towards the sizable bedroom down a short hallway, walking slowly enough to give them time to catch up.

*

Nearly an hour later and the air in the master bedroom is so hot that it seems nearly impossible that the actual season outside the rather remote cabin happens to be winter. The wonders of insulation and modern heating is the last thing on Dan’s mind, however, as his attention is being more than thoroughly commanded by his lovers.

And hell, if he’d known they’d be testing the limits of his fairly mundane sexual stamina, he might’ve made sure not to work the graveyard shift the morning before, since that tends to mess with his already questionable sleep schedule.

As it is, he’s two orgasms in— which is quite something for a man far closer to 40 than 30— and is being coaxed expertly towards a third by his determined paramours. Sweat has his slightly overgrown hair sticking to his forehead and falling into eyes that flutter nearly shut with a wave of sharp pleasure that sears through his sensitive, overworked nerves.

“Ah— oh _fuck_ , sweetheart. Oh— oh f- _fuck_ , Rose—” he pants out huskily, voice still mostly wrecked after having spent quite some time working his way up to deepthroating Crow during round two of this evening’s tryst in the bedroom. 

In an echo of the aforementioned event earlier, Rose’s dark, wavy locks move fluidly as she expertly works her mouth and hand along Dan’s erection, providing consistent suction in near-perfect counterpoint to a smooth grip along the root of his shaft. The sensation has a slow-boiling well of pleasure climbing ever higher toward its inevitable peak, as insurmountable a journey as it once had seemed to be when the couple had told him after his second orgasm that they were still feeling a bit ‘peckish’.

As the hand at the base of his dick traces down over his tightly drawn balls and further back to press on his perineum, Crow’s voice rasps lowly in his ear when he hooks his chin over Dan’s shoulder to watch his longtime lover at work.

“You know, this is a real treat: she hardly ever does this unless she _actually_ likes you.”

A deep inhalation of Dan’s pleasure-steeped steam is followed by a breathy exhalation that tapers off into an erotic moan that Crow lets rumble out from his throat. Simultaneously, Rose’s saliva-soaked fingers _finally_ press into Dan’s slightly sore hole.

Stars burst in his vision as slim fingers effortlessly stimulate his already swollen prostate, their precise movements eased by lube and no small amount of cum left behind by Crow earlier. It’s _just_ this side of too much and he _loves_ it, clenching one hand tight in the bedsheets, where he’d been instructed to leave them. He leans most of his weight on it and reaches back with the other until he hits hot skin, grasping Crow’s bare hip as he gasps and tries not to go off like a rocket while Rose fingers him well enough to give him a complex about his _own_ purported proficiency at digital stimulation.

Resting some of his weight on the lithe, muscled body behind him, Dan’s chest heaves for breath as he begins to hit his peak, air escaping from his mouth as he moans and chokes out half-completed phrases.

“ _God_ — oh… _yes_ — Rose! _Crow_. Gonna— I’m, I’m-… _please_!”

The all-encompassing wave of pleasure that threatens to crest at any moment almost completely subsumes the last of his tenuous control over his shine and he struggles to find the wherewithal to stay grounded enough to keep it as tightly leashed down as he should.

“You want to come, darlin?,” Crow asks smoothly, breath sounding short as pulses of their younger partner’s decadent delight periodically wash over him and Rose. “Then _let go_ : we can handle _all of you_. We _want_ to.”

Painfully stripped bare as he is— and all the more desirable to Crow Daddy and Rose the Hat for it— Dan Torrance struggles on the precipice of something as terrifying as it is exhilarating. Hips stuttering forward in aborted movements to avoid dislodging Rose, the youngest among them winches his eyes shut and shakes his head in denial of the request.

“Ca- _hnh_ — can’t…”

The lovely dual pressure on both his prostate and his dick lets up when Rose somewhat abruptly sits up on her knees between his splayed legs, leaning in close enough that she has to plant a hand next to Dan when she crowds in closer.

“You _can,”_ she insists, knowing that at 5 months sober, he should have _no_ problems whatsoever accessing his shine.

Like clockwork, Crow’s hand takes over where Rose’s mouth left off— adopting a quick, controlled pace up and down Dan’s saliva-slick shaft that has his hips pumping up into the calloused grip. Just before he does so, Rose meets her longtime partner’s dark eyes, noting them glint with something deeper than carnal avarice or hunger for steam— something dangerously close to genuine _care_ and fondness.

They are at least a hundred years past feeling jealousy over shared (or not shared) lovers, but his expression and his words prompt her to turn inwards and try to figure out what _her_ expression must be conveying in turn. She’s only just beginning to come to terms with perhaps feeling something _herself_ for their found treasure trove of renewable steam (and, apparently, mental and emotional trauma).

All of that, however, is part of an _entirely_ different conversation to have with Crow, soon, when they aren’t on the edge of not just an important breakthrough for Dan’s ill-managed shine power, but what is sure to be one _hell_ of sexual climax.

With a touch to the side of his sweat-tacky, bearded jaw, she prompts Dan to open his eyes and meet her intense gaze. Unintentionally, she takes in a bit of the steam still present in the air and allows its power to hone and strengthen her own, having to forcibly ignore the way that the potent stuff has her stifling a moan when her cum-slick core pulses and clenches down around nothing.

_Jesus wept_ , this man could feed and fuel the entire True Knot, if given the chance. (Not that the opportunity would ever be presented— hence her and Crow spiriting him away almost right after meeting him.)

Digging deep into her _own_ temporarily super-charged abilities, Rose projects her voice as well as her unwavering confidence into Dan’s mind, knowing that he can pick up on emotions and feelings just as well as he does actual thoughts.

“You _will_.” **~ Now _let go for us, Danny_. ~**

Dilated black pupils ringed in cerulean reflect her own glowing, white-blue eyes as she speaks, and she watches the pupils swallow up even more of the colour as she gives her command before they slightly roll back into Dan’s head.

Suddenly, the intermittent snatches of warm, sensual fire she’s been feeling ripple out into her mind burst into full, furious life with an almost vicious strength. She hears Dan’s breath catch and sees his mouth open silently on a choked inhale before she’s lost to one of the most intense orgasms she’s had for a very long time, crashing almost bonelessly onto the younger man’s chest as her hips grind helplessly into nothing and her inner walls spasm and contract almost painfully in unending waves. Unbidden, a shout is torn from her chest as she abruptly peaks.

Distantly, there’s the particular sensation of a spill of hot jism— although not much— where Rose’s skin meets Dan’s. Blinking dazedly, she feels his member continue to jerk intermittently as his quiet keens give way to near-silent moans that are more air than sound.

_Gods_ — the air is _steeped_ in steam enough that she and Crow could _gorge_ themselves. (Realistically, though, they’ve been so well-fed, that they’ve managed to fully restock her once-dwindling stockpile of steam in her camper _solely_ thanks to Daniel.)

“ _Fuck_ ,” Crow says in the bemused, drawling tone that indicates he’s just come a _lot_ harder than he expected to.

  
“Mmmm,” Rose agrees wholeheartedly, starting to come back to herself as she blinks rapidly a few times while pushing herself upright again, languidly stealing a snatch more intoxicating steam on an inhalation.

For Hollow Souls (or ‘empty devils’ as some of the ruder rubes call them), taking steam is invigorating, but with Dan still mostly insensate, he’s unthinkingly sharing a good amount of the post-coital lassitude and sleepiness that he’s feeling with his bed partners.

It’s actually kind of… pleasant, almost, she figures, grimacing as she realizes she has Dan’s come all over her stomach and even on one of her breasts. That is a little less pleasant.

Clambering forward, Rose dips her head down and shares a deep kiss with Crow that has them both grinning when they part, and then, without thinking, she busses her lips over Dan’s damp forehead, too. A bloom of warmth is projected into the room in reaction and it follows her as she silently slips over the edge of the bed and heads for the bathroom to quickly freshen up.

When she emerges a scant minute later, Crow has rearranged he and Dan so that he is nestled in close against the dozing man’s back. A hastily balled-up pillowcase is on the floor nearby, too, undoubtedly replete with bodily fluids.

_Men_.

“Really?” she deadpans, climbing back into bed with several wet-wipes in hand, prompting Dan to lift his seemingly leaden eyelids before his eyebrows crease and he makes an inquisitive sound at her flare of irritation.

“Not you, Danny” she reassures him fondly, going on to maneuver him this way and that while she cleans until she’s satisfied nothing worse than a bit of dried sweat remains on his skin.

During the process, Crow grabs one of the spare damp cloths she’s holding and efficiently wipes down Dan’s back and his own front for a second time.

**~ Lemme help** , ~ their recent lover says telepathically— a new habit he’s taken to when feeling particularly comfortable or tired— sounding exactly as lethargic as they imagine he would if he’d spoken aloud.

Tossing the balled up wipes over the side of the bed and toward the soiled pillow sham already in the vicinity, Rose quirks a half-smile and nudges Dan to sit up for a minute while she pulls the wrinkled and somewhat damp top sheet down and off the bed.

“You can help by letting us clean an evening’s worth of orgasms from this bed, but thank you, Daniel. Crow could take a lesson from you in tidiness.”

Rolling his eyes, her longtime lover gives her a flat look that has her smirking back, sex and steam leaving both feeling rather buoyant and a mite bit playful.

While she tosses the plaid-print heap of fabric on top of their growing pile of laundry and trash on the floor, Crow budges Dan over further toward the bed’s middle (and away from any potentially overlooked wet spots).

In short order, the folded comforter at the bed’s foot is spread out over the threesome, and the faint sensation of an uncomfortable chill from Dan’s gradually closing open mind dissipates. When the faint connection then breaks, that tiny suggestion of foreign sleepiness finally evaporates and Rose concludes she’s not all _too_ tired.

Meanwhile, Dan finally fully drops into much-needed slumber, settled so that his head rests on Crow’s chest while their legs tangle together. Usually Rose would just tuck herself right up against his back and catch a few Zs herself before departing early the next morning with Crow in tow, but…

“I’m going to have to teach him to start masking his shine better if _that_ ’s going to happen every time we fall into bed with him from now on. Before that, though, we should move him. _Stat._ There’s _no_ way others like us didn’t catch a spike like that if they’re anywhere in the same state. Hell, I’m pretty sure even the _rubes_ in the next hundred miles had to deal with a sudden, _very_ strong bout of sexual arousal.”

Crow’s dark ochre eyes meet hers, seemingly unperturbed by the prospect of turning their weekend plans pretty much completely upside down for the sake of their live-in meal ticket.

“Alright. Don’t have the next place I was looking at for him up in the Midwest really set up, yet, though.”

The answer that presents itself is an obvious one— but not necessarily a simple one— that the former head of the True Knot voices without hesitation.

“He’ll stay with us in the RV, for now, ‘til any heat dies down That way there won’t be any one place where they can close in on him.”

“You sure, honey?” Crow asks, his question laden with all manner of _other_ queries and concerns.

Rose at last begins shuffling in close to the back of their conversation’s subject, now that her major concern has been addressed.

“Yes,” she says simply, with conviction. “Absolutely. Now relax: might as well rest for a few hours while the snowstorm tapers off overnight. _Nobody’s_ getting anywhere in this weather.”

Needing no further reassurances or instruction, Crow nods once before lying back down properly and enjoying the warmth underneath the thick comforter— something much needed on a winter night in Pennsylvania that’s rife with the chill of the snow-blanketed Pocono Mountains around them.

“Alright, Rosie,” he murmurs quietly, so as not disturb his bedpartner’s rest. “Tomorrow it is.”

After cuddling in close to Dan, Rose rests one arm on his hip so that she and Crow can link a few fingers over the sleeping figure between them.

As strange as it is to have another person in their sphere of two that has remained unchanged for over a century, neither of the Hollow Souls thinks much of potentially letting a new person insinuate themselves into their intimate lives and spaces.

Tomorrow will be the first step in a strange, whirlwind journey to a relationship that none of the three could ever predict would become so serious and important.

*

In the wee hours of the morning, they tell Dan that they plan to move him into the EarthCruiser on a semi-permanent basis and his bewildered but happy expression is answer enough, even before he verbally acquiesces.

By the time the wan light of daybreak glistens off of a foot of freshly fallen snow, the cabin is empty of any sign that it had been occupied by Daniel Torrance, Crow Daddy, or Rose the Hat.

**_FIN_ **

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> So, in the interim of this fic and the next one, Dan _really_ becomes a ride or die bitch for Rose and Crow, going from complicity for some of their less than savoury actions, to outright participation-- if only to preserve their way of life.
> 
> In my head, he wouldn't jump to using his Shine for outright violence unless it was to protect his two faves. _However_ , I _can_ think of a few circumstances that might trigger his going into Overlook-type rage/fugue mode. ;o
> 
> Just.... something I've been pondering on and off as I start working on the next fic in this series that _actually_ takes place after TGC.
> 
> Hope y'all liked this smutty prequel in the meantime!
> 
> *  
> Come check out [my writing blog](https://dovahdoes.tumblr.com/), where I post early fic snippets and keep you updated on what i'm working on in what fandoms!
> 
>   
> Kudos and comments are love: feel free to leave me some, kind readers~. (ღˇ◡ˇ)~♥


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